Do the Rams have the cap space to make a trade at the deadline?

With the trade deadline one week away, there are always a lot of rumors and speculation on moves that certain teams might make. That’s no different with the Los Angeles Rams especially when they have a general manager in Les Snead that has proven to be aggressive this time of year.

While it’s easy to speculate whether or not the Rams or any team would give up draft picks to make a move, there is the element of the salary cap that consistently gets lost in that discussion. Teams may want to make a trade, but simply not have the cap space to take on that player’s contract.

For the Rams, that’s going to be the problem that they’ll run into over the next week. It’s possible that they could make a small-caliber move, but any big move that could tip the scales one way or the other is almost going to be impossible. The reason for that is because of the salary cap.

As it stands, the Rams currently have a little over $2-million in salary cap to work with at $2.03-million. That’s enough to get by with practice squad call-ups and brining in a free agent, but not much else. In order to make a move, a team would realistically need to be in the $5-million to $7-million range.

Unfortunately, right now the Rams don’t have a lot of options when it comes to opening up cap space. The best thing that they can try to do would be to trade cornerback Tre White. Even that would only open up around $1.3M. Still, that’s only enough to really account for practice squad elevations.

The only option that might make some sense would be to re-work Cooper Kupp’s deal. Following the trade rumors, the Rams could look to work something out with Kupp that brings his future cap numbers down, while also opening up some cap space for this season.

This is a similar approach that the Rams took with Stafford in the offseason. The team removed future guarantees that essentially made the deal a one-year, $40-million contract. It’s possible that the Rams could take a similar approach with Stafford’s counterpart in Kupp. That would allow the team to open up some cap space for this year and then re-assess in the offseason with how the two sides want to move forward.

OverTheCap

However, that conversation would likely only happen if the Rams came across the perfect deal to make it worth it. At 3-4, the Rams may just decide to ride out the year and make next season more of an ‘all systems go’ type of year.

While a trade would be nice at the deadline, the salary cap prohibits the Rams from being serious buyers. They currently have the fourth-lowest cap space available in the NFL ahead of only the Denver Broncos, New York Giants, and Carolina Panthers. With that said, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Rams are a team that should be focusing on drafting young talent that they can build with going forward rather than acquiring 1-2 year rentals.